"Same old Bill, eh Mable!" eBook

Manuscripts in the Southern dialect are fairly abundant,
and contain poems, homilies, land-charters, laws,
wills, translations of Latin treatises, glossaries,
etc.; so that there is considerable variety.
One of the most precious documents is the history known
as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was continued
even after the Conquest till the year 1154, when the
death and burial of King Stephen were duly recorded.

But specimens of the oldest forms of the Northern
and Midland dialects are, on the other hand, very
much fewer in number than students of our language
desire, and are consequently deserving of special mention.
They are duly enumerated in the chapters below, which
discuss these dialects separately.

Having thus sketched out the broad divisions into
which our dialects may be distributed, I shall proceed
to enter upon a particular discussion of each group,
beginning with the Northern or Northumbrian.

CHAPTER III

THE DIALECTS OF NORTHUMBRIA; TILL A.D. 1000

In Professor Earle’s excellent manual on Anglo-Saxon
Literature, chapter V is entirely occupied with “the
Anglian Period,” and begins thus:—­“While
Canterbury was so important a seminary of learning,
there was, in the Anglian region of Northumbria, a
development of religious and intellectual life which
makes it natural to regard the whole brilliant period
from the later seventh to the early ninth century
as the Anglian Period.... Anglia became for a
century the light-spot of European history; and we
here recognise the first great stage in the revival
of learning, and the first movement towards the establishment
of public order in things temporal and spiritual.”

Unfortunately for the student of English, though perhaps
fortunately for the historian, the most important
book belonging to this period was written in Latin.
This was the Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum,
or the Church History of the Anglian People. The
writer was Beda, better known as “the Venerable
Bede,” who was born near Wearmouth (Durham)
in 672, and lived for the greater part of his life
at Jarrow, where he died in 735. He wrote several
other works, also in Latin, most of which Professor
Earle enumerates. It is said of Beda himself
that he was “learned in our native songs,”
and it is probable that he wrote many things in his
native Northumbrian or Durham dialect; but they have
all perished, with the exception of one precious fragment
of five lines, printed by Dr Sweet (at p. 149) from
the St Gall MS. No. 254, of the ninth century.
It is usually called Beda’s Death-song, and
is here given: